Reading Order
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Reading Order
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) by Tennessee Williams is the most sexually charged American play — Brick Pollitt, his wife Maggie (the Cat), and his father Big Daddy on the occasion of Big Daddy's sixty-fifth birthday and the revelation of his cancer diagnosis, in the Mississippi Delta mansion where Brick and his brother Gooper and their families have gathered. The play's center is the relationship between Brick and Maggie and the question of Brick's relationship with his dead friend Skipper — whether that relationship involved what Brick calls 'mendacity' (the play's central word), whether Brick's alcoholism is a response to Skipper's death or to his own refusal to face what that relationship meant. Williams provided two versions of Act Three for the original production: his own version (which is darker and more ambiguous) and the version that director Elia Kazan demanded (which is somewhat more hopeful and includes a speech by Big Daddy). Most contemporary productions use Williams's original version. The play won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955.
Where to start
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) — the complete play, ideally in the two-Act-Three version that most recent editions include: Williams's original and Kazan's requested revision. Best Tennessee Williams reading order: The Glass Menagerie → A Streetcar Named Desire → Cat on a Hot Tin Roof → Suddenly Last Summer → The Night of the Iguana
Complete Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Book List
- 1Buy
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams·1955·The most sexually charged American play — Brick, Maggie, Big Daddy, and the family gathered on the Delta plantation for Big Daddy's birthday. Won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize; the original production starred Ben Gazzara as Brick and Burl Ives as Big Daddy - 2Buy
A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams·1947·The companion and the play that established Williams's major themes — Blanche DuBois in New Orleans, her confrontation with Stanley Kowalski. A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are companion Williams plays organized around a sexual secret (Blanche's history; Brick's relationship with Skipper) and the violent confrontation between the romantic self and the brutal reality that surrounds it - 3Buy
The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams·1945·The earlier companion — Tom Wingfield's memory play about his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Reading The Glass Menagerie before Cat on a Hot Tin Roof shows the development of Williams's formal and thematic preoccupations: from the gentler, more lyrical memory play to the more explicit and more violent confrontational play - 4Buy
Long Day's Journey into Night
Eugene O'Neill·1956·O'Neill's companion in the tradition of the American family confined in a house over a single catastrophic day — the Tyrones' terrible day of accusation and recognition. Long Day's Journey into Night and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are companion investigations of the American family as the site of damage and love, of secrets and their revelation, of the complicated relationship between a father's expectations and his sons' lives - 5Buy
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee·1962·Albee's 1962 companion in the tradition of the American play about the violence concealed in marriage — George and Martha's terrible night of games and warfare with Nick and Honey. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are companion investigations of the relationship between a man's sexuality, his marriage, and the violence of domestic life: both plays are organized around an evening of escalating confrontation whose central question involves a man's complicity in his own damage - 6Buy
Suddenly Last Summer
Tennessee Williams·1958·Williams's 1958 companion — Catharine Holly's account of what happened to her cousin Sebastian Venable, and Violet Venable's attempt to silence her through a lobotomy. Suddenly Last Summer is the most extreme of Williams's plays about homosexuality and the violence of its social suppression; reading it alongside Cat on a Hot Tin Roof shows the full range of Williams's treatment of male homosexuality as the unspeakable secret that the social world demands remain unsaid - 7Buy
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller·1949·The companion American play about a father's dream of his son — Willy Loman's investment in Biff as the realization of everything Willy could not achieve. Death of a Salesman and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are companion investigations of the American father-son relationship and the damage that a father's dreams can do to a son who cannot or will not fulfill them - 8Buy
The Normal Heart
Larry Kramer·1985·Kramer's 1985 companion in the tradition of the American play about homosexuality and its costs — Ned Weeks's attempt to organize the response to AIDS in New York in the early 1980s. The Normal Heart is the companion to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof across thirty years: where Williams could only approach male homosexuality as the unspeakable thing behind 'mendacity,' Kramer can name it directly, and the thirty years between the two plays show the change in what American theater could say about gay desire
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the relationship between Brick and Skipper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
The relationship between Brick and Skipper is the play's central mystery, and Williams deliberately refuses to resolve it. What we know is: Brick and Skipper were best friends and football teammates; Skipper attempted to start a sexual relationship with Brick, and Brick refused; Skipper died shortly afterward, possibly by suicide. Brick's alcoholism and his refusal to sleep with Maggie are connected to Skipper's death, but what exactly the connection is — whether Brick refuses to acknowledge that he was in love with Skipper, or whether Brick is consumed by guilt at having rejected Skipper's advances, or whether Brick mourns a friendship that Skipper's desire destroyed — is left deliberately ambiguous. Williams himself described the play as being about 'the inadmissibility of certain truths' and about the way that 'mendacity' (the play's central word, which Brick uses to describe everything he cannot stand about his world) can be a form of self-preservation as well as self-destruction. Director Elia Kazan pushed Williams to make the subtext more explicit, but Williams resisted; the play's power depends on its refusal to give the audience the explicit statement that would resolve the ambiguity.
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